Product Description

This guide is for graphic designers who want best-practice advice on how to get and keep clients while doing their best work. In a series of in-depth interviews covering a wide range of industries, top professionals reveal the principles of an effective and creative client-designer relationship: Brooks Brothers and Desgrippes Gobe; Grand Union Supermarkets and Milton Glaser, Inc.; Lomas Financial and the Richards Group; Farber & Farber and Pentagram; Abiomed and Weymouth Design; Sci. Arc and April Greiman; the Episcopal Church and Fallon McElliot; and many more. Readers will also find out how to meet and court potential clients, learn the lingo, make effective presentations, and keep clients coming back. This guide offers designers tools for identifying what is distinct about their services and what they can do to market themselves; handling proposals and contracts; and getting referrals from existing clients.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #130744 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-01
• Released on: 2003-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Ellen Shapiro has been president of Shapiro Design Associates for more than twenty-five years. She is Senior Seminar professor at Purchase College, SUNY, and a master class instructor at the University of Baltimore. The author of Clients and Designers (Watson-Guptill) and contributor to Design Culture and Looking Closer 2 (both published by Allworth Press), she has contributed more than 70 articles to design magazines. She lives in Irvington, NY

Customer Reviews

Misleading title
I purchased the book because it says: "HOW to make clients happy and do great work". Now there is maybe one or two pages in the entire book that will explain how to deal with clients. The rest of the book is just interviews of clients, but there is no real content on how to deal with situations like what to do if a client doesn't pay, or if a client asks for something different every time. These are real problems and a book that says "how to..." should actually provide information on ...well..."how to...". In a way it's inspirational, but once again, the companies as clients mentioned in the book are BIG NAMES...and 99.9% of us Graphic Designers work with the average Joe as customer. No good advice in the book sorry.

Very Misleading title
The title suggests that this books provides "guidance" and advice on client management for graphic designers. It however, is a very long collection of conversation style stories (told via interview questions) with client and designer (all very big names at that). The books does not contain any real collection of practices, principles, and/or tactical steps one can use. There's also no real organization to the book which definitely makes it "not a guide". It really feels as if the author is just showing off that she knows these big designers/clients well enough to chat and have coffee.

Review from Design In-Flight magazine, July 2004
As designers, creating solid, thoughtful solutions to design challenges is only part of the battle. While we spend time in school and on internships learning about design fundamentals, software packages and the printing process, its nearly impossible to gain an understanding of the complex designer/client relationship without the experience of a few successes and missteps.

Ellen Shapiro's The Graphic Designer's Guide to Clients aims to speed that learning process by giving experienced and novice designers alike an insider's look at some of the most successful designer/client collaborations of the past few decades.

Following the maxim that creatives learn best by following in the footsteps of the masters (an approach that is the basis of most fine arts programs), Graphic Designer's Guide shows us how the masters of our generation have perfected the art of successful designer/client collaborations.

Beginning with her own experiences, Ms. Shapiro shares with the reader her own techniques for getting, pleasing and keeping clients. Following this five chapter prelude, the meat of the book begins, with a series of 17 interviews with well-known designers (and clients), including: Milton Glaser, April Greiman, Rick Valicenti and others.

Whether you're looking to land your first client, or want to generate some referral business from your fifth, Graphic Designer's Guide is one book that will surely have some good advice to offer.